I started a habit a few months ago that's been very helpful: each morning I have to log >= 1h on my primary creative project before I'm allowed any "scattering internet," which I define as email, Slack, news, social media, etc—anything that heyfocus.com would reject.
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Great analysis on your own failings 😄 & good work job hacking yourself. I was thankfully successful with daily goals. Tiny but still daily streaks kept me on the line. I know you probably know but helped a LOT in habit forming. Did you try that? It has many option
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I’m glad to hear streaks worked for you! For me, daily streaks are too brittle; ratcheting up a target frequency in a rolling window has been more reliably successful. A big discontinuity between 100% and 95% daily adherence doesn’t match how I think about these goals.
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Love this moving window idea! I’ve been using what calls “success spirals” with great success for habits that are daily, but with less success for habits that are on a longer time scale that are harder to do daily (eg focused reading, HIIT).
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The slow ratcheting up is a deep insight I’ve seen across many reflections on this topic. One fun illustration of this is the “floss one tooth” rule.
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